Your profile, or bio, is your chance to tell the Twitter world who you are and what you do, in a space the size of a candy bar wrapper. It’s your online Twitter business card, so make the most of this tiny space. Give us some reasons to follow you!

Tell Us Your Interests or Purpose. What do you do? So many profiles don’t include an accurate or compelling description—make sure yours stands out a little. Pretend you’re introducing yourself to someone at a barbeque. How would you tell that person, in one or two sentences, something about yourself that she could understand? How will you be using your Twitter account? To educate? To entertain? To sell homemade amethyst necklaces? Then say that!

Add URLs: Add your website address in your profile so that others can find you and learn more about you. In addition, you may want to add a Facebook, LinkedIn or Pinterest URL. You can shorten your URL (bit.ly is a good URL shortener) and then add it, since the space in your profile is very limited. Note that the example profiles above all have their websites listed.

 Add Hashtags: Hashtags are those pound signs (#) that you see all over the place on Twitter. You can use them in your bio to highlight something that interests you, like this: #SharkLover or #Bicycles. However, if you overdo hashtags, that can look spammy (and unfriendly!).

 Add @ Signs. If your Twitter account has more than one person tweeting for it, add your @ signs so people know who’s tweeting. For example, if you look at the @oLyfe account, you’ll see my @ sign there (along with two others) so that people know who is tweeting for that account. @Kred does a great job using a carat sign (^) as a mini-signature, since they have multiple tweeters.

Add Your Location. While “Spaceship Earth” is great for someone into astronomy, adding your real location helps followers determine whether to follow you. If you’re in a tiny suburb, you can reference the larger area nearby, such as “Boston Suburbs” or “San Francisco Bay Area.” Some people will only follow people who are local.

Spend a little time looking at profiles and see what you like or don’t like about them. You might search within Twitter for someone who does what you do, and see whether you can use their profile as a model.